The weave creates a play of light that is evident from inside or outside and that changes throughout the day.

Located on the Island of Itaparica, the largest of the 56 islands in Brazil’s Bahia de Todos os Santos (or All Saints Bay), the project highlights the ecosystem of the area. By weaving together the palm leaves to form a lattice, Juarez gives the observer a space for reflection that redefines the relationship between landscape and shelter. The observatory changes throughout the day as the sun moves across it, creating a lattice of shadows during the day and appearing to be lit from within at sunset.

Award-winning architect Ivan Juarez founded X-Studio as a space for “young architects oriented towards reflection, promotion, research and action in different fields of contemporary expression.” Trained in Barcelona and Mexico, Juarez looks to explore the relationship between art and function. “The projects conceived in my studio explore the relationship between art and function; integrating the disciplines of architecture, design, sculpture and installation; projects in which I investigate and experiment with new ways of relating space with society; projects which I have conceived them in reason and function of its physical context and could not be generated in other place than in the one of their conception and realization.”